Google & FirstClick Go Social

We’ve been working hard here at FirstClick to give our website a fresh new design. But it’s not just pretty! Along with our shiny new look, it should be a little easier to use and even more helpful.

New at FirstClick

We look forward to providing you with a wide variety of informational morsels through our blog and new interface. We hope they’ll keep you informed, while helping you get more from your business and the products and services we provide.

We’re also excited to launch a few nifty social features. When you find great content, you can share it instantly with your social circle, ask questions, and interact with our team of experts. If you need to know something, you’ll be able to find the answer here.

Google Gets Social Too With Google +1

Google has also been tweaking and updating its system with some fun, functional, and interesting social features. As you’ve no doubt heard, Google +1 recently launched. This new tool takes the convenient sharing of Facebook and brings it right into the search results. But, instead of limiting your shares to the people you’ve friended on Facebook, you can share it with all of your friends who use Google to find information.

Here’s how it works: Let’s say you search for the perfect pair of shoes or some really good information on how to restore a 48 Ford. After going through a few of the results, you find exactly what it is you were looking for.

You’re so impressed, you share it with your friends, who are also shopping for shoes or restoring an old truck. So, instead of having to go to the various social networks to share it with them, you simply click the +1 button next to the correct search result.

When you +1 something, it’ll show up in your stream, but it will also be highlighted in the search results the next time someone in your social circle does a related search. The idea of this is to make it easy for everyone to find quality relevant content.

The same goes for Adwords. When someone clicks +1 on an ad, their avatar will appear below it, making the ad more prominent.

Is Google Plus One Impacting the Search Results?

Personalisation has become a key tool in Google’s fight against spam. And with Google +1, they have added just one more tool to their arsenal. They’ll see what results you want to see more of and which ones you don’t. Google will list results that have been +1′d higher in the results and use the data they gain from this to decide which results are the most relevant.

Is +1 Really For Businesses?

But is +1 something businesses should invest in? After all, who needs yet another social network. We feel, unlike Google’s other attempts at being social, this one may have some legs. Adoption seems to be widespread and steady. It may not be something you want to jump into right away, however.

At the moment, Google only offers personal profiles geared toward individuals, and they simply don’t meet the needs of businesses. The search giant is working on special profiles specifically for brands and businesses, but they’ve yet to give a release date. So, if you’d like to get a profile for your business, just be aware that you may need to switch it in the near future.

As for the +1 buttons, Google has made the code available to the public, so you can put them on virtually any page you’d like to promote on the network and in the search results. (You can get the code and find more information on the official Google database.)

So, what do you think about all the changes here? Have you looked at Google +1?